Jonathan Hayhurst

BREAKING: The Swedish judge who ruled that the Eritrean migrant who raped 16-y-old Meya Åberg won’t be deported after serving a 3-year sentence because ”the rape didn’t last long enough” has spoken out about the criticism & say judges can’t take into consideration people’s anger. The decision not to deport Yazied Mohamed has sparked global outrage. The Court of Appeal Judge Lars Viktorsson now tells @samhallsnytt about why the 19-year-old Eritrean shouldn’t be deported. “It was a short-lived incident,” he tells Samnytt. He remains unfazed by the storm of criticism: “I don’t think about it at all. We judge. We have our tasks. We judge, and we cannot take into account what different people think or whether they get upset. We can’t follow the winds (trends) blowing in society, whether we hear one thing or another. We go in and evaluate based on the legislation and the precedent that exists and judge accordingly.” One particular phrasing in the verdict has garnered so much attention that it has been translated into other languages and spread internationally: “Given the nature and duration of the act in question, the Court of Appeal finds that the crime is indeed serious but not of such an especially grave nature as to warrant a decision to deport Yazied Mohamed.” The judge explains: “It’s about him holding her, groping her buttocks and breasts, kissing her against her will, and persistently touching and penetrating her genitals with his fingers,” Furthermore, Judge Lars Viktorsson argues that the rape did not last particularly long. “Normally, a rape is considered an especially serious crime that can lead to deportation. But an overall assessment must still be made, and in this case, we came to the conclusion that it didn’t quite reach that level,” he says. “It was a short-lived incident. It was a rape, but he inserted his fingers into her and not his penis. He didn’t carry out vaginal intercourse with his penis. I think the verdict makes it clear that we weigh the arguments for and against and ultimately decide whether it should lead to deportation or not.” The newspaper asked the judge how long does a rape need to last to be considered sufficiently “persistent”? Should it be 15 minutes, half an hour, an hour, several hours? The judge responds to the question that there’s no particular time limit: “It’s impossible to say anything about that. It’s not just about duration. It’s also about the method. We described another rape case under knife threat but that wasn’t the case here. So you can’t say 12 minutes: deportation; 8 minutes: no deportation. Or 3 minutes: deportation; 15 seconds: no deportation. It doesn’t work like that; you have to make an overall assessment.” In addition to Lars Viktorsson, Court of Appeal Judge Elida Sundkvist, Acting Court of Appeal Assessor and Rapporteur Hanna Hamrén, and lay judges Lena Berggren (Left Party) and Sammy Lie (Sweden Democrats) ruled in the case. Sammy Lie from the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party was the only one who dissented and wanted Yazied Mohamed to be deported for life after serving his prison sentence.